To be very upset we’ve been driving around in uninsured vehicle

[BlueFairiesinthesky]

Just stopped by police with young children in car, very upsetting as was accused of driving an unregistered/ uninsured vehicle.

Our car was purchased new from the official dealership 3 years ago. We’ve had two official services and been insured through legit insurers since. The number plate is wrong by one letter! All documentation has the wrong license number. However the ownership paper does state a different license number, which I assume is the correct one.

Obviously we should have picked up on the discrepancy, my only excuse is we had a newborn at the time!

The police said we’ve been driving around uninsured for 3 years and If we’d had an accident would be fully liable for damage and personal injury.

We plan to visit the dealership tomorrow but just after any advice as I feel really angry about it. I don’t understand how this could have happened and feel really angry that we’ve been driving around at risk.

I don’t think we should drive the car until they can install the correct number plate. Which is an inconvenience. I’ve also paid £650 of useless insurance.

*Make

Bottom line is that it's the drivers responsibility to check their car is insured before they drive it.

ownvehicle.askmid.com/

There's no such thing as "good faith" defence. And Askmid trumps any paperwork you may have.

I once refused to drive a loan vehicle from a dealer as it was showing as uninsured on Askmid. Which (according to the dealer) made me an arse. But at least an arse that wasn't stopped at midnight and required to fork out a few hundred quid on towing and storage fees.

@BlueFairiesinthesky

The police officers said they’ve never come across this before. I assume garages have good checks in place to ensure this doesn’t happen- but not in our case!

Happened to us. DH got flashed by a speed camera, we waited and waited for the ticket but nothing came. I can’t remember how he actually came to notice the error but he played hell with the garage when he actually spotted the error. He’d insured it by reading off the reg in the paperwork, I think a letter was swapped on the actual plate when they’d made it up. It was only a few months he was driving round like that though, not years.

@Booknooks in our case say the reg on the paperwork was GS17 KGS the plate had been made up as GS17 GKS

But then it would be flagged as being insured by 2 people or whatever

Not necessarily. Its not uncommon to have two policies at the same time, when selling for example. Insurers might not notice, also auto renewals etc where people take a new policy out and forget to cancel an old one.

Years ago I drove an old clio from local renault dealer.

ABC 123 Silver 1998 Clio, silver
ABD 123 Silver 1998 Clio, Silver

Both genuine cars, both sent to same dealer and both just one letter different. I used to see my twin about in town.
Now when those cars arrived at the dealers they wouldn't have plates so the dealer is then responsible for checking V5 and putting corresponding plates on the cars. Sometimes those get mixed up. It's not an uncommon mistake.

@EastWestWhosBest

But when you put the details into the insurance it fills in the make, model and colour for you. Did those come up?

But it's entirely possible that the dealer was selling (for example) two red VW Golfs on the same day. First car is AB61 ABC second is AB61 ABD. Someone mixes them up.

The chassis number is what you need here as the unique identifying mark of the car in your possession.

@LadyPenelope68 Why so nasty Penny? It’s really difficult to see the difference in the plates. All paperwork is incorrect except for 1 paper.

Engineers, DVLA and 3x insurers have all cast their eye over the paperwork and engineers have seen the car plate and not noticed.

We didn’t put the wrong plate on the car!

How did you tax it though? You have to check the log book?

Whilst I agree with those who say it’s your responsibility i also appreciate many vehicles are registered in sequence so 5 identical vehicles save for the VINs could have similar VRMs.

If you were to put any of those VRMs into getting insured they’d come up with the same make and model.

What I’m surprised about is the police saying it’s incorrectly insured as if they did a PNC on your VRM then it would show the make and model same as the insurance co would see.

Someone with better knowledge could explain but I can’t see how the police would know unless they checked the VIN.

Did they stop you first for another reason and then check?

Thank you to everyone who has shared their own experiences of this happening... really helpful to hear about your experiences and the resolution

This happened to me a good few years ago. My dad had sorted out the paperwork for me and I'd never clapped eyes on it. I was about 19 at the time and was stopped at 1am when coming home from work alone. The reg number had two letters swapped around. I had to take my documents to the police station but it was sorted out very quickly. I think they're quite lenient with genuine cases so try not to worry.

@LadyPenelope68 loads of other posters saying similar stuff has happened to them. Why so horrid? If it’s annoying you maybe take some time out instead of being nasty

It’s been insured by AA, AXA and Churchill

I’m as baffled as you @LadyPenelope68 I don’t understand either. No holes in my story. 100% telling the truth.

It’s a drivers responsibility to check the car each time we drive it sadly. To check the number plate. MOT insurance etc.

It’s crap. But that’s what the insurance or the dealership might say. However. Without W doubt contect them. However they might say we if we didn’t know it had the incorrect number plate we cannot correct it etc.

The police are correct. You’d of been at fault for an accident. Due to again. Drivers responsibility.

@BlueThursday our daughter is starting Rainbows next week at another local school. We were slowly driving by to scope out where the entrance and parking is. The police said our behaviour was ‘odd’ and looked us up on the system.

We were driving back from the NT and had our two young children in car. Normal family and have never been stopped by police before!

@BlueFairiesinthesky not fun but guess best to know and get it sorted!

It shouldn’t happen but I can totally see how it could. You’ll be eagle eyed forever more on your papers!

@TheWeatherWitch

How?

I put my car number into an online insurance company, it tells me the make, vehicle, year and even the colour of my car. Same if you go into an insurance brokers or phone them.

How the fuck have you managed to insure your white Honda Civic for the last three years when the vehicle registration is for a Massey Ferguson tractor or a black BMW what ever?

A lot of ranges of reg numbers relate to very similar cars - try putting yours into one of those things with the last letter one different (next in the alphabet)

Weird. If the documents all matched the incorrect number plate (aside from the V5) then assuming it could be insured without issue, which would be weird (even more so with tax which essentially works from the same record as the V5 as in that's where they get the address in the case of penalties etc but anyway), I don't get how it would show as uninsured on the police cam which is automated. That doesn't have special vision that somehow knows the real plate, and the databases it accesses would have the number plate as is if that's the details you gave when insuring.

[quote BlueFairiesinthesky]@LadyPenelope68 it wasn’t my error though, it was the dealership. They put the wrong number plates on the car. The license numbers look very similar, I would say a lot of people would miss it at a glance.[/quote]
It is your responsibility though. Regardless of whose error it was originally.

Totally dealerships fault.

Go to Halfords tomorrow with the V5 and get new plates made up and fitted. Call dealership and get them to pay the money for the nee plates and fitting.

Call insurance and tell them the problem and get the letter/number amended.

Then have wine.

All sorted

It sounds like the dealer just put the wrong plate on - they can supply a couple of correct replacements - job done.

@BlueFairiesinthesky

Yes the insurance is for the registration number on the car, which is wrong. It is definitely the dealership’s fault not ours. They put the wrong number plate on the car.

The initial error is the dealer’s fault, but the responsibility for a car’s legality is down to the driver. Sorry, but you can’t put it on the dealer after 3 years. You’re actually lucky you didn’t have the car seized under s165 of the road traffic act.

The only thing in mitigation which might have gone in your favour is that although the plate is wrong, the VIN number will match what’s on your V5

But if they 'looked you up on the system', it wouldn't have highlighted anything amiss, as the number on your car has insurance. Also, once the police identify that you don't have insurance, they seize the car. You are not allowed to just drive away with no insurance